: The visit of Guddu Muslim to Puri, the most wanted for the UP police in the murder of Umesh Pal in Prayagraj, has left serious questions on the security apparatus in the city. With red corner notice while STF of UP police is in search of the absconder, the accused has successfully left the city without a trace to the intelligence officials here.
After the ATS exposure, the police here have woken up over a failure of the intelligence network. Question is being asked if Puri is a safe haven for terrorists and most wanted criminals. Is the Jagannath Temple secure despite a tight security establishment here? Are the hotels and guesthouses in the city safe hideouts for terrorists and interstate mafias? Though the UP police have not confirmed entry of Gudu Muslim to the Jagannath Temple, yet serious eyebrows have been raised over porous security in the city. The local police are only busy scanning the CCTV cameras in the temple and hotels.
Visit of Gudu is the second such case after the entry of Indian Mujahidin (IM) operatives into Jagannath Temple almost a decade back. Delhi police had exposed this by arresting two IM operatives. The operatives had conducted rekey in the shrine. After such exposure, the State police had come under serious flak. On possible terror attacks, Jagannath Temple remained in top focus of the State police. Installation of CCTV cameras, metal detectors and deployment of armed forces at four entry points were made to avert any terror attack. To ensure better security, the State Government converted the Lions’ Gate police station to the grandest PS of Asia continent with an allotment of 256 posts. However, nothing has changed in the security scene of the temple as yet.
For quite a few years, the district has become a soft target of inter-State burglars. The inter-State gangs have targeted the metallic idols and gold ornaments from households and temples. Particularly in the city, more than dozens of gold burglary cases have happened, but sadly, the police have not yet succeeded to recover gold in a single case as yet.
It is obvious despite tight security cases related to pick-pocketing, gold snatching, bloodshed and entry of banned substances into the shrine have not yet stopped. Likewise entry of mobile phones and video shooting in the premises has been a usual affair. Security officials have no detecting mechanism to locate whether the entrant is really a devotee or a criminal.